Pronunciation of World Products

Have you ever read a novel where many of the characters have foreign names that seem unpronounceable?  In my head, I just pronounce them as best I can and as long as I am consistent in that pronunciation then all is good for the flow of the story.  Should someone give me the correct pronunciation then it's easy enough to change how I read it....

"Catch 22" has a few names that gave me issues. Even Yossarian presented problems for my pre-teen mind when I first read it.

Also, the main character in "Cat's Cradle" is Little Newt Hoenniker. That last name gives me tongue cramps...

I see it like this... we all sit here typing and communicating through the written word. We have all pretty much agreed that it is unnecessary to correct poor spelling, grammar, and punctuation. It's beneficial, educational and of great value to be able to spell, punctuate, and use proper grammar, but it's rude to nitpick someone, especially if English is not their first language.

Why is the pronunciation of foreign words, and the correction thereof, not treated with the same sense of respect and understanding?


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Interesting point made here, and I couldn't agree more. But the fact is, you guys probably don't figure out how intolerant (to the point of being utterly stupid) some native English speakers are to people who have a poor English, and are actually doing an effort to communicate themselves. Not to mention those who arrive into foreign countries and complain that they are not being attended to in their own language. I've witnessed the second situation myself and refused to provide a helping hand because the guy was an a**hole, and suffered the first one even though my command of English is good, but you happen to ask for directions and there's a place with a funny name you haven't ever heard of, ask for the whereabouts of it and don't find much understanding when you mispronounce it. That happened in Sydney, and made me think that even though most Aussies are welcoming and friendly people, there's always an exception to the rule. It doesn't help that English is not a phonemic language, and that the international phonetic alphabet equivalence of every word is only available in dictionaries.

Nonetheless, efforts made in order to correctly pronounce a foreign word are warmly welcome, in most cases. So I say it's good to give it a try.

"Never condemn a man for mispronouncing a word. It means he learned it by reading..."

That's something I read in a book years ago. Can't remember the book nor the author, this no attribution. As I recall it was a lesson being handed down from old to young. I thought it a valuable and profound statement, and chose to use it here.

Another great point made here. It takes me back to my comment above. The problem with English is that you may read a word, and have no clue on how to pronounce it.

Tell me about it. I got fascinated with perfumes and watches first before I went into Wet Shaving and was I confused. I had to look up the pronounciations on some of those brands on YouTube, I'm not even sure if I remember them correctly.

Watches:

Audemars Piguet -   O-de-mars Pee-ghay ,

Jaeger La Coultre -  Jeh-jher La Cool-truhh or la coot. I've heard them both

Tag Heuer - Tag Hoyer

Patek Philippe - Pa-tek Fee-leep

Hublot - Oo-blow

Vacheron Constantin -  Va- she-rohng Con-stant-tah.

Blancpain - Blank- Pan

Breguet - Bre-gay

Perfume:

Pour Homme - Poor Om

Ives Saint Laurent - Eev San Laurangt

Amouage - Am-wu-aj





As for wet shaving stuff, I pronounce

Cade as Kad.

L'occitane as L'Oxitan,

Chatillon Lux as Sha-ti-yong Lucks,

Stirling "Piacenza" as - Pia-chenza

Those are the ones on top of my head. I can certainly be wrong on some of these, hopefully I don't butcher them too badly.

I had this armchair communist English lit prof in university. We read Steven Crane's THE OPEN BOAT ( gunrunning to Cuba) and she interpreted the seating of the boat reflecting social hierarchy. I argued it was weight distribution, the captain needing to navigate and the helmsman and rowers assigned by physical ability. She demanded to know my expertise.
Uh, six years lifeboat coxswain and cutter helmsman USCG. We shifted next week to the Little Prince. I did a brief talk about his various aircraft; a Bre Gay bomber in the desert mail service, Simoons, another Bre Gay reconnaissance in WW2 and dying when his difficult to fly P 38 lightning's faulty oxygen supply rendered him unconscious.
She sat there salivating and struck like a snake. ' Mr Kavanaugh, are you a francophobe and homophobic?' There are times when the best accent in the face of stupidity is silence.